


First times

by JustPlainJane



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustPlainJane/pseuds/JustPlainJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine the most painfully clichèd fluff physically possible, the kind you hate yourself for writing but love anyway. This is that. Sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a new job so I've been mostly too busy or stressed to write but this is the only thing I've written recently I can actually stand (I couldn't think of anything less painfully clichè for the title, sorry

If something happens between them, you can guarantee it happens for the first time in the car. Too little space easily bridged and an easy tension between them insures that.

Things start small. So small that neither of them really register it.

The first time she sits up with him all night is a stakeout. Keeping a watchful eye over some creep she doesn't want to think about, let alone involve herself with. And somehow Gibbs knows that, she thinks. He's the one who gets out of the car for coffee and food. He keeps glancing over at her, though she's fairly certain he doesn't know she's noticed and the thought makes her smudge the lipstick ring on the top of her coffee cup with a smile.

They're two containers of Chinese food and five takeaway cups of coffee in when Kate accidentally bridges the gap between them for the first time. She's twisted around awkwardly, reaching into the back seat for a blanket, cold enough that goosebumps are rising in her arm.

A scowl creases her brow as she eases herself a little further free of her seat and tries to balance herself on the back of his, her hand bracing against his shoulder instead. She doesn't even notice until she tries to reach a little too far for the awkward angle she's taken and she tumbles against him and he laughs, one of his hands sliding up to cover hers as she grips tighter at his shoulder in an attempt to steady herself.

It's then that she absentmindedly realises for the first time how nice his laugh is and how she wishes she could hear it more often. How nice his thumb feels working a small circle against the back of her hand.

She shakes the thoughts away, retrieves the blankets and settles herself, but it seems to have broken the awkwardness because he plucks one of them away from her and tucks her in properly, albeit with a tease about her youth she doesn't really pay attention to, just scowls and pouts in his direction.

When she wakes at around seven, she feels guilty for how exhausted he looks, even if he's trying to hide it. Feels awful for having slept so long when she wanted to be proving herself to him. So she insists on retrieving the coffee and gets him two cups, brushes a kiss and an apology over his cheek when she hands it over, though he just mumbles "'S fine," and accepts his coffee with a rueful smile, as if letting his agents sleep through half a stakeout without a rollicking was normal behaviour.


	2. Chapter 2

Nobody at work calls him 'Jethro'. No-one. It just doesn't happen. It feels awkward and somehow too intimate and stilted.

And he knows that no-one except Tony has the balls to call Kate 'Katie'.

So when he's handing her a cup of coffee across a carefully darkened car, slumped low in their seats and the words "No problem, Katie." Slip from his lips for the first time in response to her quiet thanks, he's understandably a bit concerned. Both for his mental wellbeing and what in hells' name she's going to do to get him back for this.

He watches her cheeks flare red out of the corner of his eye and tries not to notice how adorable she looks in case he's just digging himself deeper into a hole.

It turns out, moments later, that he is not only sans-hole he doesn't even have a shovel.

"Cookie, Jethro?" Is angled tauntingly at him from her seat and he knew that if he could see her, he'd see a playful challenge rising in her eyes, but he was too busy pretending to watch for their suspect and act like he wasn't thinking about how nice his name sounded on her tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even sure if this is long enough to be counted as a chapter but I keep catching myself writing stuff I'm not entirely happy with or it doesn't fit right just yet or it ends in a way that means in needs to be added in later. I'll try and start updating a little quicker ^-^ (Also the comments on the first chapter made me happier than an ant at a picnic, THANK YOU!)


	3. Chapter 3

Looking back on it, he supposes the first time they held hands was odd to say the least. It didn't feel odd, though. Not at the time.

It was the middle of the summer and they were trapped in the cramped, over-warm confinement of the car on the way to some convention.

The entire operation had made him uncomfortable as all hell. Tracking a killer who used dating websites designed to cater to older men who like younger women was proving harder than it had first seemed. So, when a website he'd seemed to be using on a regular basis announced they were holding a three-day event to showcase success stories and help introduce new couples, it was too good an opportunity to miss for the killer, so too good an opportunity to miss for them.

She'd seemed nervous too. Fidgeting and squirming most of the journey there. Making him pull over at every other services so she could pace anxiously, micro-manage insignificant details.

Gibbs had tried to pull his gruff marine attitude with her and it just hadn't worked. So he'd tried it again half way through a sandwich at the next services and she'd looked so close to tears he'd lost his appetite entirely and they spent the next fifteen minutes of the drive in silence.

He'd let her stew for as long as he could bare. Let her curl up defensively with her paperwork until he noticed one arm braced on the centre console, her palm open and fingers lax.

For a long while, he just watches that hand out of the corner of his eye, watches how her fingers twitch occasionally, muscles flinching under taught skin.

Then, he balls up all of his courage in his gut and slides one hand down from the wheel and into hers, as if her resting the weight of her forearm there had been a lazy invitation from a lover.

And to his surprise, she doesn't reject him. Doesn't draw away snarling so maybe he'd misjudged what she needed. Maybe for once she didn't need bolstering, she needed a gentle reassurance. Or maybe she just thought he was slipping into character early but he ignores that option in favour of absent-mindedly noting how soft her skin is and the fact she's rubbing her thumb against his knuckle.


End file.
